# How Did Library Checkout Work Before Computerizaton? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 6, 2010, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191 "2010-04-06T20:15:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/41 "2010-04-07T15:31:11Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > I’ll get a day in pergatory for that. And a second day for misspelling purgatory. ---
**Author:** ![gazpacho](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/6f9a4e/32.png) [@gazpacho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gazpacho)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/42 "2010-04-07T15:40:50Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > And a second day for misspelling purgatory. They changed the name to Durango Mountain Resort. It didn’t take so now it is Purgatory at Durango Mountain Resort. But good news you can get a deal on a two day pass. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/43 "2010-04-07T15:42:12Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > And a second day for misspelling purgatory. Ha! Good catch. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/44 "2010-04-07T15:51:54Z")
Speaking of old libraries… Is the Dewey Decimal Classification dead? I’ve heard the Universal Decimal Classification works better with computers. ---
**Author:** ![kuhlcat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/6a8cbe/32.png) [@kuhlcat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kuhlcat)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/45 "2010-04-07T17:07:59Z")
Remember when retail businesses used to put your credit card into a device, put a multi-part carbon form, and manually charge to your card, and someone later did whatever manual entry was neccessary to get it on your charge account? That is what the libraries here in San Jose did in the 60’s and 70’s and even 80’s until our first automated (computerized) system was installed. Your plastic card was inserted on one side, and EVERY book had a plastic card with author/title. The due date was set on the machine, like a date stamp, and you ran a paper transaction for every book. One paper went into the book pocket with the plastic card, and the remainder were filed together by a printed number on the receipt fotrm. When books were returned, the paper was pulled and shredded. After an appropriate length of time, remaining slips were gathered together and the overdue clerk sent out manually typed notices. Boy, I sure welcomed computers! Remember, widespread automation of library procedures, including the card catalog, is a recent (early 80"s maybe?) event. ---
**Author:** ![SleepyDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@SleepyDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SleepyDuck)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/46 "2010-04-08T05:28:53Z")
> [@Wheelz](#): > > _Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Missing Football_ I remember that one! 🆒 Iam claimed that he had mistakenly kicked the field goal wide right, and had no idea where the football had gone at that point. Leroy was immediately suspicious of this story because Mr. Gillty had told the the tale _without a trace of a European accent_. The iron-clad proof, however, was when Leroy tossed his crumpled library card in front of a walking Gillty and the perp _kicked it straight ahead with his boot_. Leroy knew that if he were a real placekicker, he would have taken three steps backwards, then two steps to the side, then removed his boot, then kicked the scrap paper with the instep of his bare foot, _ **as all placekickers do!** _ This was all the evidence Leroy’s cop father needed to beat the suspect with his baton, then remand him to the Idaville city jail holding cell where he was anally raped by “Butch” Kimball. The last thing Iam remembered was a fellow felon crouched fetal-style in the corner muttering “A narrow flight..An arrow flight..A narrow flight" over and over. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/47 "2010-04-08T07:16:58Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > TOne afternoon they announced the library was going to be closed for a day. I believe it was to go over every damn book to make sure it had the proper card. I’ll get a day in pergatory for that. Wouldn’t it be easier to just tell the librarians to make sure when you check it out you inspect the card closer? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/48 "2010-04-08T09:58:46Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Is the Dewey Decimal Classification dead? > > I’ve heard the Universal Decimal Classification works better with computers. No. As an example I can tell that the Swedish National library and the rest of the Swedish library community is in the middle of a process to start using Dewey instead of the Classification System For Swedish Libraries (Klassifikationssystem för svenska bibliotek) maintained by the Swedish Library Association. If you come to New York you can stay at the [Library Hotel](http://www.libraryhotel.com/dewey-decimal-system/index.cfm), where each room has a Dewey code (and my old classification teacher commented that had they chosen UDC instead they could have had more rooms with a better range of coding). ---
**Author:** ![longPath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bb73d2/32.png) [@longPath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/longPath)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/49 "2010-04-08T10:14:11Z")
I was going to post this in a recent thread about obsolete jobs but never got around to it. I worked for a company that provided microfilm services to the City of Toronto Library system. Each branch had at least one camera on the checkout desk, maybe as simple as a little Kodak rotary camera. Your library card was fed together with a card from inside the book. Someone else from our company drove around the city and picked up the film cassettes for processing. I never really knew what happened to the developed images. I don’t think they went back to the branches. Maybe to the head office. It was my job to fix the cameras and reader/printers. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/50 "2010-04-08T10:44:04Z")
> [@elmwood](#): > > At my local library, I also remember the checkout librarian putting both the main card from the book (which had the due date stamped on it) and your library card onto a tray with some kind of camera mounted overhead, and touching a button. The tray/camera device lit up, and made a sound resembling “eee-DURRRRRR-eee”. I saw this system in the 1970s and 1980s. Yes. I remember the camera thingy too, in our small branch library. A Buffalo thing? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/51 "2010-04-08T12:17:52Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Speaking of old libraries… > > Is the Dewey Decimal Classification dead? > > I’ve heard the Universal Decimal Classification works better with computers. if the library started using Dewey a century ago and it is a local public library then it may still use it. every public library i’ve been in uses Dewey. ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/52 "2010-04-08T12:24:42Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > This reminds me of a nasty prank we pulled in High School (in the 70’s). … So (the bastards that we were), we took about 16 books from random shelves and swapped their cards. … I’ll get a day in pergatory for that. libraries are sacred temples of knowledge. i don’t think you will get off that easy. you better do some volunteer work at your local library. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/53 "2010-04-13T21:05:16Z")
> [@johnpost](#): > > if the library started using Dewey a century ago and it is a local public library then it may still use it. > > every public library i’ve been in uses Dewey. There’s no reason to change systems, once you have a huge collection already tagged with it. Whatever advantage any other system might have with computers is hardly worth the effort. WRT checking books: The UC Berkeley main stacks were still transferring some books to computer records when I worked there. They’d been using IBM punch cards. The book had a card, and the patron filled out a blank (unpunched) card in ink when checking it out. Then a library worker would run the two cards through a punch machine which copied the encoding of the book’s identity to the blank, while typing in the patron’s library ID info (and date, etc.). Huge batches of the cards were run through the IBM every day to see what was due, returned, recalled, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/54 "2010-04-13T21:56:55Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > Speaking of old libraries… > > Is the Dewey Decimal Classification dead? > > I’ve heard the Universal Decimal Classification works better with computers. No, it isn’t. DDC is still the norm for public libraries and K-12 school libraries in the US. Some American universities also use DDC, but this isn’t especially common – most use Library of Congress Classification. I don’t think I’ve ever even been in a UDC library. They told us in library school that this classification system was more common outside the US. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/55 "2010-04-13T23:17:31Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > WRT checking books: The UC Berkeley main stacks were still transferring some books to computer records when I worked there. They’d been using IBM punch cards. The book had a card, and the patron filled out a blank (unpunched) card in ink when checking it out. Then a library worker would run the two cards through a punch machine which copied the encoding of the book’s identity to the blank, while typing in the patron’s library ID info (and date, etc.). Huge batches of the cards were run through the IBM every day to see what was due, returned, recalled, etc. Hey cool! I worked at UC Berkeley (Doe Library, aka The Main Library) in the 70s. Your description is spot on, except that there was no copying of encoding via machine…I would sit at a keypunch machine with a stack newly returned books, and type (with my fingers) the call number onto a card. Whenever a customer couldn’t find a book, we had look through the card file to make sure it was indeed checked out (as opposed to misplaced) and when it was due back. Faculty were never required to return books. We once sent out a polite letter, asking them to return anything they were no longer using, and did get some response – which resulted in some very ancient dog eared punch cards finally falling out of the card file. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/56 "2010-04-13T23:37:51Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > … > Whenever a customer couldn’t find a book, we had look through the card file to make sure it was indeed checked out (as opposed to misplaced) and when it was due back… Enormously civil of you, and cyber cakes and ale to you. Three cheers! 🙂 It is better than saying “Hah! Well, WE think that you do have that book and our word is final. Give us lots of money now, or be forever cast into outer darkness.” > [@jsc1953](#): > > … > > Faculty were never required to return books. We once sent out a polite letter, asking them to return anything they were no longer using, and did get some response – which resulted in some very ancient dog eared punch cards finally falling out of the card file. Didn’t that ever lead to problems? I mean, in the sense that _sometimes_, perfectly good and ethical people, “respected academics” or whatever, who would certainly take any lost property they found to the police station, and who would be nice to kittens and puppies, donate to charity, help old people cross the road _etc_., might _sometimes_ have a bit of an ethical blind spot when it comes to much wanted books? (N.B. This is not purely my own cynical view but one that was expressed, not entirely in jest, by a Philosophy tutor back when I was a young Celyn.) ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2010, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/57 "2010-04-13T23:44:55Z")
My library had the camera dealy too. Late 70s up until every book got a bar code and the librarians got light pen bar code readers around about 1988 or so. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/58 "2010-04-14T01:03:30Z")
> [@Valgard](#): > > … > > When I lived in England in 1979-1980 you had library tickets - 5 little tickets with your name on them and you gave one to the librarian for each book that you were checking out. You’d have to return the book to the same branch that you borrowed it from to get your ticket back. Out of curiosity, was this a particularly small local government area or anything? I ask only because it seems to me that public libraries had, by the mid 1970s, mostly moved on from this Browne issue system to a computerised version. This was driven in part by the mid 1970s re-organisation of local government areas. Due to the need for previously different local council areas to merge, there was a bit of a push for some public services, including public libraries, to address this by introducing a degree of computerisation. The thinking being, I suppose, that there was going to be an almighty bit of changing anyway, so no better time to do it. There certainly had been previous movement towards a bit of co-operation of libraries as to how best to utilise this new opportunity of computerisation, although this was for the most part (although not entirely) regarding academic libraries. Obviously any amount of university people writing any amount of papers, making any amount of co-operative groups, and producing any amount of acronyms does not always change make. 😃 However, I do know that in the mid-to-late 1970s, my local library system had switched on to this wonderful magical (creaky, by today’s standards), thing made by Plessey, I think. And I remember my delight that I could legitimately use libraries all over the city. That Plessey thing, was, I think, quite common by late 1970s, and I think Camden in London was the first to use it, although I might very well be corrected on that. ---
**Author:** ![MentalGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/439d5e/32.png) [@MentalGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MentalGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/59 "2010-04-14T01:58:56Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Nowadays they just laser-scan the bar code and it all automatically goes into the system. Wow, are you behind the times.😉 At our library, we put our card in a slot, then lay our stack of books on a mat. It reads the imbedded RFID chips (I assume that is what it is) and prints out a receipt. ---
**Author:** ![guizot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guizot/32/3636_2.png) [@guizot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/guizot)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2010, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191/60 "2010-04-14T02:16:55Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > Hey cool! I worked at UC Berkeley (Doe Library, aka The Main Library) in the 70s. Your description is spot on, except that there was no copying of encoding via machine…I would sit at a keypunch machine with a stack newly returned books, and type (with my fingers) the call number onto a card. Really? Does that mean the call # was typed at least in twice? Once upon check out, and then upon return? And maybe again if a search or hold was put on it? That’s crazy. > [@jsc1953](#): > > Whenever a customer couldn’t find a book, we had look through the card file to make sure it was indeed checked out (as opposed to misplaced)… I was an expert at searching the stacks for mis-shelved books, if I do say so myself. There’s an art to it. > [@jsc1953](#): > > Faculty were never required to return books. We once sent out a polite letter, asking them to return anything they were no longer using. I made a “docudrama” film about the Doe collection, in which a hapless reporter gets lost in the stacks and stumbles across a clandestine unit of the library that uses “special tactics” to get books from professors who flout the lenience of the system. The unit is called “GRAB”: General Recall of All Books. They wear all black, and sneak around the darkened tiers carrying ropes and grapnels, etc. Their motto: “We take and get what we can.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-library-checkout-work-before-computerizaton/535191.md?page=4)